Yami A to Z
by Demented Inu
Summary: Each letter has a different story to tell. TsuzukiHisoka, TatsumiTsuzuki, and others.
1. Absence

**A/N:** All right, so I noticed Kanki Youji working on her story "Hetalia A-Z" (which if you haven't read, I recommend), and decided why not try one for Yami? We talked about it and she agreed that I should. So here's the first chapter of it. Don't be afraid to leave reviews giving suggestions for future titles; Goddess knows I'll need them.

Oh, and in case you don't know me well already, probably not a lot of fluff in these. Just a quick angst warning.

* * *

Every morning, Hisoka woke up to the sound of Tsuzuki's voice.

(_I'm cooking breakfast, he would say. Hisoka would have to rush up and into the kitchen to stop him before he burned down the kitchen trying to make oatmeal_.)

Every morning, Hisoka woke up to the feel of Tsuzuki's emotions swarming his own with irritating determination.

(_Happiness and insufferably blue shades of doubt_.)

Every morning, Hisoka woke up to the taste of Tsuzuki's coffee.

(_He made it black especially because Hisoka asked him to. It was more than his family had ever done_.)

Every morning, Hisoka woke up to the smell of Tsuzuki's toothpaste.

(_Dark mint, like a peppermint patty, or like the last few snowflakes when spring is trying to break through._)

Today is different.

This morning he wakes with a stiff sort of feeling in his stomach, one that burns bitter and green, and when he reaches over to the other side of the bed, there is only the cold sheet against his deprived fingertips.

There is only the sound of silence echoing throughout the hallways, where a cheerful and laughing voice had once been. (_Or else sobbing inside for something he could never have_.)

There is only the feel of the cold enveloping his thin arms until he can sense goosebumps rising on his flesh.

(_Don't touch me, he used to say. Funny that now all he wants is the exact opposite_.)

Only the smell of stale laundry and the lingering scent of Tsuzuki's cologne.

(_It smells like loneliness. Like one swing left on the play equipment, but the chain is twisted, warding away visitors_.)

There is a feel to the air, to the house, that makes him curl back beneath his sheets and bury his face and take a deep breath of a presence that was once here. This sheet, that pillowcase, that bottle of sake in the fridge (_half-empty, not half-full, not anymore_), that sense of longing deep in his cold, numb core.

These remind him of why he promised himself, so long ago, to never get attached.


	2. Bandage

Luka was more than grateful when her little brother's frantic sobbing died down to little more than a few hearty sniffles. He was still trembling even as her fingers smoothes over his freshly-bandaged knees (they'd been terribly scraped, bloodied and barely scabbed, legs covered in shallow cuts), but she only tried to smile, smoothed down his chocolate brown hair, brought the boy to sit in her lap.

"Asato-kun," she said, rocking his tiny form (trying to make her voice match what their mother's had been: soft, sing-song, soothing). "What was their reason for this, love? Why do you let them do this to you?"

Asato looked up at her. Eight and small, wide innocent (_violet_) eyes still tinged red, still tear-filled. Little nose pink from rubbing it with his sleeve. "I… I don't know why," he half-sobbed. (I know why.) "I just… they _chased_ me, Luka, they hit me with sticks and threw stones at me! This isn't _my_ fault!"

Flushed and angry and so very sad. His round face, small ski-jump nose, caramel-tone skin; the boy was walking candy, and he looked so very much like their mother. It was actually sort of incredible how the soft girlish features complemented him. A spitting image, really, all but… Christ in Heaven, all but those _eyes._

Sometimes, in those moments when her tuberculosis seemed to be eating away at her voraciously, Asato would stay by her side and watch her with those eyes until she couldn't stand to look at him anymore, and she'd cry and turn her face away (_don'tlookdon'tlookdon'tlook don't look at me with those hungry devil eyes_).

And he'd give her this look of betrayal from her bedside, shrinking away into himself as though trying to disappear. She didn't blame him; she felt guilty for those times, but chalked it up to illness, because if it weren't for this damned fever, she wouldn't have fantasies of wrapping bandages around his eyes, his mouth, covering him like a mummy so she wouldn't have to look.

She loved her little brother. She just hated the demon inside him.

But she was a good sister (_a good mother_), and she held him as he looked to her with violet bandage-eyes, smoothed his soft brown hair as she spoke with his bandage-mouth, clinging to her with bandage-hands: "I don't think they like my eyes, Luka."

Luka opened her mouth to reassure him, but he interrupted, "Maybe it'd be better if I never existed."

(Oh. _Oh_.)

Why did she hold him tighter, and yet feel so very afraid of him?

"I love you," she told him, emptily. (_My demon bandage brother_.)

* * *

Next up is C - Crown, which centers around Tsuzuki's possession in The Devil's Trill.

Looking for ideas for D! Any suggestions?


	3. Crown

In the midst of his possession, Tsuzuki had felt a lot of different things.

He'd felt hot-and-cold, spirit shivering as though with a child's fever. Like he wanted to pile up with blankets until he could sweat the sickness out. (It's what they'd done with Luka, after all. It hadn't worked.) Felt a sense of entrapment, as though held within himself by a strong outer seal, of invisible chains binding him to his subconscious.

Panic and grief as, over and over, he watched his sister die. Guilt when he'd remembered the cause of her death (_myfaultmyfaultmyfaultmy--)._

And, primarily, a wave of overwhelming absolute power.

Tsuzuki had always known he was different, even when surrounded by his JuOhCho friends. Even amongst an empathy, a mad scientist, a kagetsu master, an invisible pervert, he was abnormal. It was because of his roots (he refused to acknowledge it as anything else, wouldn't say it out loud, not once, _I'mnormalI'mnormalI'mnormalI'm_--); whereas most shinigami has three, four, five shiki at most, he had twelve In his possession. (And Touda, above all.) He could summon them without the use of fuda. Could perform magic without any sort of pentagram. Heal three times faster than a normal shinigami.

This sort of power had attracted Sagatanas, he knew that. Made him vulnerable for possession. And normally, he wouldn't think anything of a little power boost, but—but God, this felt so different, so pure, so…

So damn _good._

Like his entire body had become filled with some sort of dark shadow (or maybe it was blindingly white light), and he could feel from inside as each blast of energy dizzied his head. He couldn't control any of it, but it was there, packed into his puppet-shell, while the devil tugged his strings.

He was too drug-numb to mind it.

(_Sagatanas promised to be gentle. Not in words, but… promised with his eyes to love him when nobody else could. Kill the boy, and keep this blessed power_.)

His sister, bloodied and torn, kept him sedated.

(_It was just a boy. He was certainly strong enough to do it_.)

Hijiri's words, soft and _Iloveyou_, helped pull him to his feet, dizzily. Though for a moment, he'd seen Hisoka instead.

(_Powerful like a Lord of Flies bearing a crown of thorns_.)

Tsuzuki didn't feel that way anymore. Didn't miss that trapped, suffocating, claustrophobic feeling. Didn't miss the sensation of fingers in his mind or misinterpreted high thrumming through his veins.

No. He didn't miss any of that.

What he missed was not his delusion of his thorny crown, but the warmth of that briefbrief moment when he'd heard Hisoka say, "I love you."

For that… well. Maybe it had almost been worth it.


End file.
